Northampton Saints
MoTM - The League semi final away at the roundabout.
By Saint Tim
July 12 2011
The prize for the victory against Leeds was a trip to the Stadium on a roundabout to play our fierce local rivals for the potential prize of a game at Twickenham. I was not sure at the time if this was the best warm up for the following game which was of course the Heineken Cup final. It had been a long hard season and the squad had largely been played to a standstill but of course the club and the players want to be involved in these games.
Who was your MoTM in the Premiership semi loss away at the roundabout?
Now games against Tigers are normally slug fests between the forwards with not that much ball seen by those wearing numbers greater than 10 on their backs. Certainly this was another fierce encounter with both sides going toe to toe. It was not a high scoring game but it was full of incident and intensity. From my armchair however it always felt like Tigers had the slight advantage – that they were holding us off just that little easier than we were holding them off.
The key talking point of the game came on 32 minutes with the score still at zero zero. Saints were for once in Tigers territory and making some progress. Myler took a quick ball and the Tigers defence was disorganised. Myler looked for Ashton who was, as usual, available – this time on his left shoulder, but the pass was not on so Myler went right and play continued with the referee watching the ball. Ashton in the continuation of his run immediately passed by Manu who somewhat threw an arm out in a challenge. The resulting contact whilst bearing no obvious malice was high and took both players off their feet. Ashton obviously a little upset at the contact bounced to his feet and moved a couple a paces over to where Manu was sitting on the floor with his back to him. Flash then foolishly, but in the heat of the moment, shoved Manu in the back. At this point nothing really had happened of note. The problem was the red mist descended over Manu and he leapt to his feet and aimed a series of blows at Ashton the final one of which was delivered with real force. To his credit Ashton did not go down, did not do a Regan and play act, he just stood his ground.
The referee was unsighted as he was watching play but he took advice from his touch judge who should have had a clear view. On the TJ’s advice Manu received a yellow card and was an incredibly lucky boy. Sitting on the sofa at home I wondered if the ten minutes with a man advantage may turn it around and give the Saints an upper hand. Any idea this may be the case was quickly scuppered as after allowing him to receive treatment a somewhat astounded (and bloodied) Ashton was also shown a yellow card.
To my dying days I will never understand that decision. Again to his credit Ashton just trooped off.
Now did this change the outcome of the game which Saints went on to lose 11 – 3? Well to be honest I cannot say that it did. It was very close throughout but Saints were always just second best. We do not have a good record against a team playing a man down BUT we will never know. What I do know is that game took an awful lot out of the players.
There was one other incident worthy of discussion and it shows up two other important points. Saints had a scrum on our own five metre line and we were penalised with a turnover to Tigers. Under the watchful eye of the ref Dylan then took three playful (I don’t want to be too controversial) slaps from one of the Tigers front row. This was obviously to try and wind up the supposedly hot headed Saints hooker. Now as I say this took place right under the nose of the ref who did absolutely nothing. At a minimum he should have warned the Tigers player. I bet if the roles had been reversed it would have been a penalty against Dylan. To his great credit Dylan did the taking in the next scrum where he took the ball against the head. Well done Dylan – poor show Barnes.
So, who caught the eye?
Apart from Thugilagi that is – I am sorry that was just too obvious to miss.
In third place was Courtney Lawes with 19.6% of the votes. Long Arm was everywhere and that he was the subject to some nasty posts that he was over the edge from our bouncy chums just shows how well he did in fact play. It was the epitome of why we never liked Johnson (but our bouncy chums did). They will love Long Arm if he plays like that in a white shirt.
In second place was Mr dependable - Roger Wilson with 25% of the votes. The alias really says it all. Roger is a fabulous player and should in my opinion warrant another game or two for his native Ireland.
The winner – and the recipient of a black eye to boot was Chris Ashton with just under 40% of the votes. Chris played well and took the blows of Manu and the referee with great distinction. Well done young man – just leave out the push next time whatever the provocation.
- What me Ref?
First of all my thanks to all 56 people who took the time to vote. This is a very disappointing total for such an important and televised game. I sometimes wonder if it is worthwhile producing this when we get such a low turnout. I have one more to produce then I will consider next season over the summer.
Full Result
Previous Winners
Vote History
Who wins?
Leaderboard
Players Used
Digg
Delicious
Facebook
Reddit
Stumbleupon12/07/2011 20:37
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
I do know that no one - me included spotted an error that was introduced some time back. I have corrected it for the final report of the season and implemented a check so that I cannot do the same error again.
Anyone spot it?
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
Saint til I die
As to the error - you've spelt 'Euan' wrong on the list of players used, but I can't spot anything else!
The error is that during testing for my database (I was doing some fixes and improving it for me so it was easier to enter data) I added a sixteenth player to an already existing game. That in itself is not too bad BUT I also gave a very high score to the phantom player making him the winner and thus robbing someone of a win.
It does not alter the final outcome but it does mean in my analysis for Bruce I robbed him of a victory this season.
Now which game and to whom did that victory get given to?
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
If you look above at the previous winners section you will see Alex Waller listed as the winner that day. If you cared to look on the Offy you would see he wasn't even involved that day.
I remember thinking when writing up that he had won his third MoTM that I couldn't remember the second - well that was because of this :-)
I found it as I was looking at stats for the season review.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin
Tetleys Block F E143
More Northampton Saints headlines
- End of season how the squad was used analysis
- This weeks rugby 1st - 5th July
- Weekend Rugby 27th/28th June
- Weekend Rugby 19th - 20th June 2026
- Weekend Rugby 12th - 14th June 2026
- Weekend Rugby 5th - 7th June 2026
- Weekend Rugby 29th - 31st May 20206
- Weekend Rugby 22nd - 23rd May 2026
- Weekend Rugby 15th - 17th May 2026